'Feast' will give you indigestion

I knew I was going to miss the late great Robert Altman, but I didn’t realize just how deeply until sitting down to “Feast of Love.”

Al Alexander

I knew I was going to miss the late great Robert Altman, but I didn’t realize just how deeply until sitting down to “Feast of Love.”

Talk about indigestion! I could have used an entire bottle of Pepto Bismol before all was said … and said … and said … and done in this talky, saccharine-coated ode to love and self-importance.

An ensemble piece with multiple story threads, “Feast” cries out for a whimsical juggler like Altman to keep everything from crashing to the ground.

Don’t get me wrong, Robert Benton is a great filmmaker and has three Oscars to prove it. But he’s no Robert Altman. He’s more in the vain of an Alexander Payne, someone adept at telling small, intimate stories with an exacting blend of comedy and pathos, as evidenced by his sterling work on “Places in the Heart” and “Kramer vs. Kramer,” both included in the AFI’s recent list of the 100 greatest American films.

With “Feast,” though, Benton experiences only famine. But he’s hardly the only culpable body. He gets plenty of “help” from Allison Burnett, a screenwriter in name only, who also penned the equally insipid “Autumn in New York.”

Together, they’ve created a monster drain on your patience with a plodding story about four couples from the picturesque city of Portland, Ore., whose romantic lives range from steadfast (Morgan Freeman and Jane Alexander), to fraudulent, as is the case with Greg Kinnear, whose first marriage was to a dog-hating lesbian (Selma Blair) and his second to a lying, cheating Realtor (Radha Mitchell).

Toss in a pair of barely legal amateur porn stars (newcomers Toby Hemingway and Alexa Davalos) with daddy issues and you have all the ingredients for a glorified look at romance that thrives more on manipulation than heart.

Culled from the popular novel by Charles Baxter, “Feast” has all the flavor and nutrition of rice cakes. Everything in it is either a cliché or a contrivance so implausible that you can’t possible swallow what’s being fed.

Even the relationships are bogus, particularly between the characters played by Freeman and Kinnear, who are presented as close pals yet neither knows where the other lives until one coincidentally buys the house next door to the other late in the movie.

That’s not half as bad, though, as Fred Ward’s embarrassing portrayal of an abusive alcoholic father bent on killing his son’s new girlfriend. The reason? I guess because it’s in the script.

Although, given how quirky and sickeningly sweet the son and his girlfriend are, I found myself actually rooting for the old coot to pull the trigger.

As the young lovers, Hemingway (no relation to the author) and Davalos are forced to spend a good deal of the movie naked. Knowing Benton’s love of exposing the bits of his young actresses (he unveiled Reese Witherspoon in “Twilight”), the nudity here feels uncomfortably gratuitous.

Yet, the film looks so cheesy and the production level is so low, you get the feeling he may have just run out of money in the costume budget.

The only actors who emerge with an ounce of dignity are Freeman and Alexander, playing a couple dealing with a great tragedy that’s put a strain on their once-perfect marriage. They are charming, witty and affecting.

Not so the other half dozen members of the ensemble. There’s not a likeable one in the bunch. They only annoy as they yammer on and on about their petty problems.